Princess Leonor of Spain will be joining a diverse group of classmates
Credit: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, FILE
Housed in a wind-blown Welsh castle perched on a cliff top overlooking the grey waters of the Bristol Channel, Atlantic College is more haunted castle than royal palace.
But this autumn Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish throne, will become the latest in a series of European royals to enroll in what is possibly the most unusual sixth form college in Britain.
The Spanish Royal Family announced on Wednesday that King Felipe and Queen Letizia would be paying the fees for the £67,000 UWC Atlantic College course in the Vale of Glamorgan from next autumn from their own Royal Household grants.
Previous royal pupils include Crown Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, who joined the school in 2018, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and Princess Raiyah of Jordan.
However, Princess Leonor will not be surrounded solely by fellow aristocrats.
King Felipe VI of Spain, Queen Letizia of Spain, Princess Leonor of Spain and Princess Sofia
Credit: Eduardo Parra/Getty Images
Many pupils are from poorer backgrounds and more than 60 percent of pupils enjoy some kind of financial support from the institution’s many wealthy benefactors.
Atlantic College — or the United World College of the Atlantic, to give its full title — was the brainchild of Kurt Hahn, a German educationalist who decided a new form of education emphasising responsibility, internationalism and democracy was needed to avoid a repetition of the First World War.
He fled Germany in 1933 after publicly criticising the Nazi Party and, before he purchased St Donat’s Castle for Atlantic College in 1960, founded Gourdonstoun, where Prince Charles was educated.
The school, which opened in 1962, is now home to 350 pupils between the ages of 16 and 19 from around 90 countries.
Former pupils speak fondly of ‘Hogwarts for Hippies’ where the ethos is “people from all over the world can get along if you throw them together in a castle”, according to alumna Louise Callaghan, the Sunday Times Middle East correspondent.
The announcement that Princess Leonor would be joining drew criticism from republican and Left-wing parties in Spain.
Princess Leonor delivers a speech during the 2020 Princess of Asturias award ceremony
Credit: ANDRES BALLESTEROS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Pablo Echenique, the leader of the hard-Left Unidas Podemos party which is part of Spain’s coalition government, noted that the 15-year-old princess’s schooling in the 12th-century castle would cost six times as much as the minimum wage in Spain.
“They have chosen a humble and cheap school”, Mr Echenique said ironically in a tweet.
A row also ensued after Spain’s state broadcaster, RTVE, linked the decision to send Princess Leonor abroad with the situation of former king Juan Carlos in a caption used on a television show discussing the news.
Spanish prosecutors last year opened three different investigations into the financial affairs of the 83-year-old, who is King Felipe’s father, prompting him to seek exile in the UAE.
“Leonor is leaving Spain, like her grandfather”, the caption read, prompting Spain’s main conservative opposition, the Popular Party, to demand resignations.
Rosa María Mateo, RTVE’s chief executive, apologised for the “serious error” and said those responsible would be “relieved from their positions”.
Princess Leonor previously attended a Catholic school near the family’s Zarzuela Palace residence outside Madrid, at a more modest cost of around £2,000 a term.
As a 16-year-old prince, King Felipe was also sent abroad to study, in Canada, where he was accompanied by a military aide from the Royal Household.
It is not clear if Princess Leonor will also require a security detail, and, if so, whether this would be paid for from the Royal Household budget or by the interior ministry, as is the case with the round-the-clock security enjoyed by Juan Carlos in Abu Dhabi.
The Royal Household had not last night replied to requests for comment from the Telegraph.
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